Prioritet’s own menu

It is interesting that Prioritet (the SEO company that recently was banned by Google) don’t use their home-made method on their own site. But they have hidden a menu behind the logo (shows only on mouseover).

Prioritet-meny

Do you think this is made for the users or the search engines? What kind of usability is it to hide a menu if it is made for the users and contains important navigational elements?

This entry was posted on July 19, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Google Penalty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Prioritet’s own menu”

  1. Espen Liland Says:
    July 19, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    That hidden menu seems more like a menu for the search engines than the users. Although I won’t completely rule out the possibility of just really bad usability. I found it only because I had a look in the code and thought “There’s a huge menu here. But where the h*** have they put it on the site?”. And then I startet mouseover-ing all over the place to find it.

  2. Roal Says:
    July 23, 2007 at 7:27 am

    Although I agree that the menu should not be hidden behind the logo I seriously doubt this is search engine spam. I think it is a case of (as Espen said), really bad usability.

  3. Per-Erik Skramstad Says:
    July 23, 2007 at 8:07 am

    Roal, you may be right. But the Prioritet pattern is clear:
    - hide menu on client’s sites
    - hide links to Prioritet in client’s menus
    Why hide things if you want the users to use them?

  4. Nestor Says:
    July 24, 2007 at 7:49 am

    This could very well be an attempt at SEO spam, but for some reason I don’t really think so. There are no “keywords” in the menu, just links to the regular pages on the site.

    For usability purposes, I guess, they put the menu underneath the logo as this is a place people usually go for navigation back to the index page. Might be bad usability, which I guess the only evidence of would be the statistics of the site: how many people use the menu etc.

    And: looking at this presentation by the Spam Cops, I am not really convinced that they have a case here. But, then again: self appointed police (or any police, for that matter) doesn’t always do.

  5. Per-Erik Skramstad Says:
    July 24, 2007 at 11:59 am

    Nestor: Vi don’t need Prioritet’s site as a case since they don’t use the methods they use on their clients sites. :-)

  6. Nestor Says:
    July 26, 2007 at 12:53 pm

    So why do you?

  7. Per-Erik Skramstad Says:
    July 31, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    FYI, Nestor, Prioritet has put the menu under a new and visible menu element.

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